


Before You Ask Which Way To Go

by treadsoftly



Series: Stay Awake [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ben Solo will get his redemption and what he deserves damn it, Emperor Kylo Ren, Empress Rey, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), Rey Palpatine, Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren Spoilers, TROS fix it i guess, TRoS Spoilers, and self discovery, its about meeting in the middle, or even a Ben goes light tbh, the resistance, this is not a Rey goes dark fic, we're heading into gray jedi territory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:42:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23406970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treadsoftly/pseuds/treadsoftly
Summary: “Why do you want the Emperor dead?” Rey settled on asking.“Because the galaxy is mine, I’m it’s Emperor, it’s Supreme Leader.”“Isn’t it mine? By right of blood?”Ben’s bent head shot up and his eyes looked at her sharply, as if seeing her for the first time since they began speaking. “It’s mine, by right of conquest.”“And if I want it back?” Rey demanded.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Stay Awake [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706407
Comments: 36
Kudos: 141





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from All Time Low's song "Stay Awake (Dreams Only Last for a Night)". Whenever I feel lost or overwhelmed, I listen to the acoustic version and it's therapeutic--I think Rey and Ben could do with a little self discovery.  
> I have a really bad track record of not finishing fics. No worries, the entire first part is complete and just in need of editing. So here we go, here's chapter 1. Leave me a line and tell me what you think.
> 
> Disclaimer: Nothing but original plot belongs to me, all characters, plot points, and lines from the movies are owned by Disney and Lucasfilm. This work is for fun.

“You’re his granddaughter. You are a Palpatine.”

And just like that, all of Rey’s worst fears are realized. 

The images Ben sent her way assaulted her. She was still reeling from the unbidden memory of her parents, of realizing they died for her to live. Rey was unable to cling to that pure, parental love in the face of an acrid odor that tasted of death as it filled her nostrils and the visage of a gnarled, hooded man swam before her eyes. She tried to push it away but Ben would not let her. He wanted her to see. The darkness, the sheer evil, radiated palpably from this thing that was less man and more machine. This creature that dared claim her as his own, as blood of his blood. Her grandfather, who killed her parents for loving and protecting their daughter. 

The hanger bay of the Finalizer faded away and Rey felt sick. Her body shook with a truth she did not want anymore. Ben was right when they fought, he had never lied to her, even when it hurt. And he is not lying about her grandfather. 

“My mother was the daughter of Vader,” he continued as he advanced towards her, his gait predatory while his mask still modulated the deep timber of his voice. “Your father was the son of the Emperor. What Palpatine doesn’t know is we’re a dyad in the Force, Rey. Two that are one.” 

Her heart thumps faster in her chest, and just when she thinks she can’t take anymore, that Kylo Ren has done enough, the back of her foot touches nothing (when did she start stepping back?) and she looked down over the edge of the hanger at the darkened and snow washed city of Kijimi. She felt so far away from everything in that moment, including herself. She could feel him on the fringes of her mind, worried for her, in awe of her. 

This is not what she wanted. 

Rey wanted parents. She wanted a family. She thought perhaps she had found it in the Resistance. Then she felt a desperate familiarity akin belonging in Ben’s presence. But she spurned him and the future he wanted. For the past year, despite staying with the Resistance, Rey has felt untethered, lost, wanting Ben but hating what he offered, what he wanted from her. 

In that moment, Rey feels like her chest has been hollowed out even though she still feels the pounding of her heart pressing into her ears; a cadence of despair flowing through her veins. 

How long had Ben known? Had Luke known? Did Leia? Had they all knowingly kept it from her? Were they afraid of her? 

“We’ll kill him, together, and take the throne.” Even in the middle of her turmoil, she heard him speaking in startling clarity, cutting through all the noise occupying her headspace. 

He paused, lifting his hands and with a hiss his mask is discarded revealing his face, scarred and determined and just as earnest as that day on the Supremacy when he killed Snoke for her, offered the throne to her, laid himself bare to her.

“You know what you need to do. You know,” he implored, his gloved hand reached out to Rey once again and her breath caught in her throat. Behind him an array of Stormtroopers stood ready, their blasters pointed directly at her. 

“I do,” she whispered. Does she? 

The engines of the Falcon drowned everything else out. Her nose twitched as she forced herself to come back to the bright lights and smell of fuel in the hangar. The bright red blaster fire whizzing past her undoubtedly helped snap her out of haze.

A roar and a gust of air from the engines of the Falcon pushed at everything in the hanger bay but she stood her ground with a little help from the Force, watching the Stromtroopers get thrown back. Finn stood on the ramp of the Falcon calling out to her and Rey did want she knew how to do--she ran with one last fleeting look at Ben, thinking with sadness how she is always running from him.

Finn ushered her into the main of the ship, whooping in joy and heading straight for the cockpit. The moment Rey saw Chewie’s back in the co-pilot seat she released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. 

“Get us the hell away from here Poe,” Finn called to the dark haired pilot, an urgency in his voice that overshadowed his previous joy. 

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” is all Poe said before the ship jerked forward and the Finalizer was left behind.

Once the Falcon hit hyperspace, herself, Poe, and Finn take turns hugging the Wookie. Rey’s fingers trembled in Chewie’s hair as she placed her head on his shoulder, glad he was alive, glad she hadn’t killed him, glad she had proof that she hadn’t succumbed to what may as well be her fate. 

The Force lightning had frightened Rey down to the core of her being; she had felt the unrest of the midi-chlorians in her body as she accessed a part of the Force only known to the Sith. Even before Ben’s revelation, Rey had seen the Sith throne. It is only after she discovered her heritage that she understands what it means. Maybe it was her destiny all along? Maybe she can’t stop it?

The Falcon is joyous around her and Rey cannot participate. Not with what she learned about herself. Feigning exhaustion, Rey escaped to the sleeping quarters, avoiding Finn and Poe’s curious stares. They hadn’t heard Ben and Rey wasn’t in any rush to tell them, not until she faced it herself. 

It is BB-8 who rolled beside her, beeping and asking if she is okay. She smiled sadly down at the perpetually cheerful droid unable to divulge the truth so she simply nodded. BB-8 rolled back and tilted his headpiece as if asking if she was sure, and Rey smiled, truly, and sent BB-8 on his way. 

As the only girl aboard the ship, Poe and Finn always give Rey the captains quarters, with Chewie’s blessing of course. Against the hum of the ship, Rey sat on the hard durasteel floors and attempted to meditate, to clear her head, to fight with this truth. Anything. But every time she closed her eyes Rey saw the mangled face and burning orange eyes of a man she cannot fathom is her grandfather. 

When sitting still did nothing to soothe her, Rey grabbed her staff and practiced saber and staff forms. The Captains quarters were spacious for space craft, but still smaller than the larger practice rooms she is used to now, so she keeps her movements tights and faces the challenge head on. All the while Rey’s mind wandered. 

In another life Rey might have known her parents for longer than those few short years. She might have been trained as a Force user from a young age. Maybe she would have inherited the galaxy to remake in her own image. Would her father have taken Palpatine’s steed as Emperor? Would he have led the galaxy towards the New Republic after Palpatine’s downfall? Would her father have fought against Palpatine if he wasn’t protecting her? 

This gave her pause as she quite literally stopped in the middle of a form. The galaxy could have been hers. Regardless that she would have trained as a Sith, though she shuddered at the thought, she would have been an imperial princess, maybe one day an Empress.

Rey was nothing if not pragmatic. When a problem arose she worked quickly to solve it, it’s how she survived so long on Jakku. The galaxy was a complex problem. Sometimes there was too much politicking and not enough doing, and other times too much doing and not enough politicking. 

But this morning she woke up as Rey, a nobody from Jakku. Now, she is a Palpatine. As much as it made her skin crawl, the name had to hold some weight, it had to mean something to Empire sympathizers displeased with the First Order the way Organa meant something to the New Republic, to the Rebels, or to the Resistance. 

With a half baked idea, Rey fled her quarters and stormed into the cockpit where Chewie, Finn, and Poe were animatedly talking about their escape as a memory wiped C-3PO gasped in horror and BB-8 chirped in delight while D-O ran around in nervous circles--the cockpit was filled to the brim. Normally Rey would have joined, but today was not normal. 

“Can we get the General on the line?” Rey asked, her voice breathy, but from the exercise or her unease, she was unsure--though she did make sure that they were in real space after having taken any number of quick jumps through hyperspace. 

“Sure thing,” Poe chimed, spinning over excitedly in his chair and hitting a few buttons on the control panel. 

“ _ Don’t tell her I was captured _ ,” Chewie mumbled. “ _ Don’t need her worrying about me _ .” 

Finn looked like he was ready to protest, but Leia Organa’s blue tinted face appeared before them all and, perhaps unconsciously, everyone stood a little straighter and taller.

“How’s the search going?” Leia greeted the group, a tired smile adorning her face. 

“We’ve got a good lead, General,” Poe answered, pleased to share some good news. “And we picked up a new droid friend.” These comms were never the best place to share classified information, which was why no one mentioned the Sith dagger, the run in with the First Order, the stop on Kijimi, seeing Lando, none of it. 

It was also why Rey should keep her mouth shut and should wait for a quiet moment. But seeing Leia’s face brought back all her uncertainty. “Did you know?” Rey demanded, her shoulders stiff and her voice hard. She was aware of the way everyone whipped their head around and stared at her like she grew a second head, but Rey couldn’t give a damn right now, she needed answers and from experience Rey can say Skywalkers need their teeth pulled before they speak the full truth.

“There are many things I know, Rey. Perhaps you could be more specific,” Leia prompted, not unkindly but as a mother who was steps away from scolding a child. Rey suddenly wondered if she spoke to Ben like this, like he was a petulant child who couldn’t know anything about anything. 

“About my parents,” Rey ground out. “About my  _ grandfather _ ?” 

It felt as if the universe was holding its breath. Rey never spoke to anyone, much less the General, like this. No one dared make a sound, not even the droids squeaked, but Leia’s holo flickered and crackled in the silence, her face unmoving. Perhaps she’d had this conversation before, with Ben, and was reminiscing how it went wrong. Her deep sigh and the way the lines on her face settled a little deeper made Rey believe that she most definitely had. 

Rey wonders what Leia will say, if she’ll admit to knowing, to hiding it from Rey, like she hid Vader from Ben. Perhaps her and Ben were more alike than Rey ever thought, or would allow herself to think. He had called them a dyad in the force--it was something rare, Rey knew that much, and perhaps something dark. Her Jedi texts don’t speak of dyad’s. Attachments were frowned upon, even ones made by the Force itself apparently. 

“Luke suspected,” Leia admitted slowly, “but we had no way of confirming and didn’t want to trouble you with it.” She paused, her brow furrowed. “How did you find out for certain?”

“From Ben.” 

And this is when the silence was broken and mayhem ensued. “Kylo Ren? And you believed him?” Finn exclaimed incredulously while jettisoning himself off the bulkhead. 

“Seriously Rey? He’s probably playing mind games with you,” Poe admonished, spinning swiftly in his chair to look at her while Threepio asked who Kylo Ren was and BB-8 chirped away an answer. 

“ _ And you’re certain he was telling you the truth, Sunshine? _ ” Chewie asked, and it was the only thing that gave Rey pause. Chewie had taken to calling Rey ‘ray’ in Shryiiwook as a term of endearment. Rey had never had a term of endearment and every time she heard it, her throat would fight her to close up. 

“He showed me,” Rey announced quietly. “Palpatine’s barely alive on Exegol and he wants me dead.”

“Rey,” Leia spoke clearly, her voice firm. “Your blood does not define who you are. Before the war, I was Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan’s royal house. It was not in my blood but it is who I am because it is my choice. I am Leia Organa-Solo because that was my choice. If I wanted to be Leia Skywalker, I would be, but nothing about me would change. Your blood, your family name,it does not define you.” 

Poe blew out a breath before saying with a smile, “Except, it kinda does, your imperial highness.” 

Behind them, Finn snickered and Rey turned quickly to glare. Backing up, Finn lifted his hands in surrender, “I didn’t mean to offend her royal highness.” 

BB-8 was chirping, rolling around Rey’s feet and playfully nudging her. “No, no, no one’s kneeling BB-8,” Threepio responded to a series of BB-8’s chirps and Rey nearly laughed; she nearly forgot how upset she was, how lost and confused and hurt, until Threepio began speaking again. 

“Well, excuse me your royal highness,” Threepio spoke, “but as the Human Cyborg relations specialist, humanoid men bow, and humanoid women curtsey. Other species may show deference in other--Oh I know BB-8, that’s why I said humanoid--oh, yes--you most certainly can lower your head dome, it would very respectful indeed”

“Thank you Threepio,” Leia interjected, attempting to get the conversation back on track though also trying to make some light of the situation, “but if Palpatine hadn’t self destructed the Empire, Rey might have been Empress.”

“Oh, well that changes things,” Threepio happily supplied. “Yes BB-8, you may still lower your head. Her Majesty would find it deeply respectful. Oh, if I may,” Threepio said, doing his best estimation of a bow and stepping back. 

And this is where Rey’s thoughts had come to a stop before, ignoring Threepio in favor of what had driven her to make this call. “And why can’t I be Empress now?” 

Again, the cockpit filled with silence, that is, except for Threepio’s ramblings of monarchies and dynasties, and heirs to anyone who would listen. 

“Rey, the Empire, it can’t--” Leia spoke over Threepio, her voice sounding more pained than Rey would think it should. 

“I know that,” Rey interjected. “But the Empire;s sympathizers don’t need to know that.”

_ “The sympathizers have already sided with the First Order, _ ” Chewie explained slowly. 

“Because they think it’s the Emperor’s legacy,” Rey refuted. “Wouldn’t they change their mind if they thought their Emperor had a bloodline?” 

Poe looked like he was mulling it over, while Finn stood back, absorbing this information. “It’s why they follow Kylo Ren isn’t it?” Poe asked, probably rhetorically because he steamrolled on. “They think he’s the Empire’s legacy. This move could get us the ships, the men, that we need. Help us control the narrative as well.” 

“But they wouldn’t be fighting for us,” Finn finally spoke, stepping forward. “They’d be fighting for an Empire.” 

“Finn is right. Even if we could maneuver around and declare Rey Empress, the moment we’re all in the same room discussing reform, it’s gonna go to hell in a handbasket. We’ll be at war again before the last delegates finish arriving,” Leia sighed. There was something speaking to Leia in the background, drawing her attention away. Everyone in the cockpit could tell the conversation was essentially over not because Leia’s attentioned was diverted, but because she hadn’t agreed with Rey. 

“I need to be off. Be careful all of you. And Rey, remember, you are who you want to be.” And with that, Leia signed off. 

Silence filled the cockpit again, before Chewie broke it. “ _ I’m not calling you royal or highness or anything. _ ” Even in the cloud of her own torrential thoughts, this is what made her laugh, what shattered the tension building in her chest and loosen her shoulders so they shook with what mirth she could muster.

“I never expected you to, Chewie _ , _ ” Rey responded, a sad smile on her face. The idea was a half baked and impossible, nor was it anything Rey really wanted for herself, but it could have ended the fighting, or at least Rey hoped it could have. 

Leaving that crowded cockpit, Rey ruminated on Leia’s advice. Rey didn’t want any of this. She didn’t want to be a Palpatine, she didn’t want to be, or knew how to be, the Jedi that would save them all. All those years wondering who her parents were and now that she knew, now that she wasn’t Rey-nobody anymore, she doesn’t remember why she thought knowing would bring her peace or happiness or anything really. 

Rey is suddenly overwhelmed with the memory of the throne room of the Supremacy, Ben telling her to let the past die, kill it if she had to, and then holding his hand out to her with so much hope. With new found resolve, she was going to kill the Emperor, kill his legacy, but first, she had to get to Exegol. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved writing this part. These two just kept talking and I kept adding more and taking it out. I think this part of the story is what I changed and fretted over the most. I hope it's authentic to the characters. Leave me a line and tell me what you think!

Some time later, when they were once again in hyperspace and Rey tried meditating (again) crossed legged on the floor, the bond opened. Rey had been keeping it closed off for the better part of a year, but today when she felt the tell tale tickling in the back of her mind, she let Ben flood into her quarters. 

He sat, too large and dark on the Captain’s cot, mask and saber beside him and looking pensively at Rey’s necklace from Pasaana. The wooden piece was so small and worn in his large leather clad hands.

Quiet static hummed between them and the rest of the world faded away. “You stole that from me. I quite liked it,” Rey spoke. 

Ben looked up, his mouth parted in shock. So he hadn’t been expecting to see her. How did he think she was going to handle the news of her grandfather? That Palpatine had killed her parents? That he had known and for exactly how long? 

It took Ben some time to find words, his eyes roaming Rey as she sat on the metal floor of the Falcon as a shiver ran up her spine. “You stole my saber. I quite liked it,” he mocked without any real spite. 

“We’ll call it even then.”

“Hardly,” he snorted before he sobered. “Why are you here?” 

“How long have you known?” Rey asked quietly, resisting fiddling with the end of her tunic and forcing her fingers wide over her knees, gripping perhaps harder than usual. She hadn’t consciously called him, but maybe she had? Their connection was never something Rey could explain or control but she knew she wanted answers. She finds herself unbothered by taking his words, his physical images from the Force, as what they are--the truth. She wants more truth. 

Today she faced the truth that Ben never lied to her. That her grandfather was an evil man. That he killed her parents. Sitting before Ben, she realized Luke lied to her when he didn’t tell her about his suspicions; he didn't tell her about how he betrayed Ben. Finn lied to her about who he was. Leia never told her about her parents either, for the whole year she’d been attempting to learn from her. But Ben had always told her the ugly truth. 

“A week at most.” And Rey swallowed. At that, she couldn’t be mad. A week with no contact was a lot more excusable than Luke not telling her during her entire stay with him on Ahch-To. 

Though her head was still swimming Rey always found it easier to do something rather than be idle for fear she’d drown--so she drummed her fingers on her knees and she talked. “Why do you want the Emperor dead?” Rey settled on asking.

“Because the galaxy is mine, I’m it’s Emperor, it’s Supreme Leader.” 

“Isn’t it mine? By right of blood?” 

Ben’s bent head shot up and his eyes looked at her sharply, as if seeing her for the first time since they began speaking. “It’s mine, by right of conquest.” 

“And if I want it back?” Rey demanded, her heart beating harder in her chest, as if she were in the midst of a battle trying to anticipate her attacker’s next move. 

Ben stood, his jaw clenched as he breathed harshly out of his nose. “I asked you to stand by my side. To take my hand.” 

“No,” Rey shook her head while standing quickly to meet his piercing gaze. “Kylo Ren asked me to join him on the dark side. To leave behind people who mattered to me.” 

“There are no extremities,” Ben huffed. “There is only the Force and what we do with it.” 

Rey stills. This was new. Kylo Ren was an apprentice of the dark, though admittedly not the Sith. But Ben Solo was an apprentice of the light. Rey wondered when he came to the realization that balance cannot exist on one side or the other. 

She does not think of the words before they are spilling from her. “I’m learning that now.” Once they are said, she realized it was the truth; on Ahch-To, the dark could not tempt her and the light could not soothe her.

Ben looked down at her (he is always looking down at her with his height, but not unkindly) his face softening at her admission, “What is it that you want, Rey?” 

“I want an end to the wars. And I have the right name to do it.”

Ben is closer to Rey now, the space between them electrified as their bodies naturally pull closer to each other. “You think the galaxy would choose the untested granddaughter of Sheev Palpatine over the battle proven heir to Darth Vader trying to finish Vader’s work?” 

“Vader’s legacy was made at the hands of my grandfather, at the wish and command of my grandfather,” Rey responded, her voice sharp while she quietly wondered when that man who dared claim her as blood had begun to be claimed by her as blood. 

“Is it power you want, then?”

“No, I want the fighting to stop,” Rey shot back, beginning to pace in her frustration. “No one is doing anything! The Resistance is barely surviving, thanks to you for that. Palpatine is trying to remake the Galactic Empire, and we’re squabbling. So many people are dying,” she trailed off, her chest heaving as she realized how close to Ben she had gotten while pacing back and forth, her neck aching from looking directly up at him.

Taking a deep breath and turning away from him, Rey tried to center herself and reign her emotions back in to make sense of her own thoughts. “We both want the same thing, don’t we?” she finally asked, her back still to him. “Palpatine dead?” 

“And after?”

She turned back to look at him, to look at him eyeing her warily. “You tell me. What will your Empire look like?”

“Excuse me?”

“If we go to Exegol and kill him, together, what happens next?” Rey pushed ahead, not realizing Ben is feeling disbelief, not contempt. 

“It’s been a year, you’ve seen what my Empire looks like,” Ben supplied. 

Rey was quietly pensive for a moment. Had she seen? Leia and her admirals were always so quick to remind everyone that anything on the HoloNet could be propaganda, to not believe a word without seeing it for themselves. But they never did see it for themselves--the resistance didn’t waste precious time or rations sending people out on reconnaissance missions to evaluate the state of the galaxy. “So the HoloNet is true then?” 

“I have not censored the media,” Ben ground out through clenched teeth, as if he couldn’t believe Rey would think such a thing. 

“You’ve closed down publications you didn’t like,” Rey fired back. 

“I closed down publications for printing libel or for unfair business practices.” 

“Oh,” Rey whispered, her ire dying quickly. She hadn’t known that. How much else doesn’t she know?

When neither of them said anything for a while, Ben sat down on the bed again (His chair? Because he wasn’t there, was he?) and spoke softly, “They’ve told you not to believe anything on the HoloNet.” At Rey’s slow nod, Ben sighed before speaking again. “I’ve outlawed slavery and sent troopers to the Outer Rim to enforce my law. I’ve invested in education, especially in the poorer outer worlds. I’ve rearranged trade routes for fairer business. I have scouts out trying to map the Outer Reaches to make it safer to navigate.”

That doesn’t sound monstrous. That sounds like Ben Solo, not Kylo Ren, not Supreme Leader Snoke, nor Emperor Palpatine. I called you a monster. 

“I told you I was,” Ben responded verbally. 

Rey knows she hadn’t spoken aloud. In an instant, her quiet pensive expression morphed into disquiet. “I told you to get out of my head.” 

“I’m not in your head. I told you, we’re a dyad in the force.” 

“Will you tell me what that means?” Rey exclaimed.

“Yes,” he nodded. “But that’s not why you called me here.”

“I didn’t call you here.” Ben gave her an appraising look, as if he was amused with her defiance and it rankled her. Powering through, Rey repeated herself, “We kill Palpatine. What comes next?”

“That depends on you. You haven’t told me anything but a dream. What is it you want, Rey?” 

“I already told--”

“No,” he cut her off, shaking his head as he stood. “You want peace? You want to end the wars? You want to be Empress? Will you see to the death of the First Order? Of me? Tell me.” 

Indignant, Rey stood up straighter. “If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t be talking to you.”

“Then why are you talking to me?” 

Rey’s shoulders tense as she looked at Ben, really looked at him standing before her with his broad shoulders tensed and his hands squeezed at his side. “Your mother and I did not agree,” Rey finally admitted.

“Unsurprising,” Ben scoffs. “What did you want to do? Declare yourself Empress and win over the Empire’s sympathizers who do not fully support the First Order? It’s what I would have done and Leia would have hated it.” 

For some reason it annoys her, the way he sees through it all. “The resistance stays under my protection,” Rey spit out, surprising herself and Ben with her outburst, though she’s glad she said it. She will not compromise on this. 

Rey watched as the muscles in Ben’s jaw clenched as his fingers tightened and slowly released at his sides with a crinkle of creasing leather. “That will be...difficult.”

“I don’t care. The galaxy is ours. I will not be your consort. I want a future worth looking forward to for every single person in the galaxy, that includes the Resistance.”

“The Resistance--”

“You asked me what I wanted, I want to create a world where they can come back. Where we don’t need a Resistance or Rebels.” 

Ben waited a moment before continuing. “Until then, will you protect them even when they are actively crusading against you?” 

Rey noted Ben did not disagree with her vision for the future. “I will not hurt them.” 

“Even if they hurt you?” Ben asked, his head tilted to the side as he appraised her. “They will brand you a traitor the moment you walk away--their token Jedi seduced by the dark side.” 

“I know,” Rey sighed, her shoulders deflating. 

“And yet you still want to protect them.” 

“They gave me a home when I had none. They risked their life and came back for me when they didn’t have to,” Rey spoke softly, practically pleading with Ben to understand. “I can’t do what I need to with them, but I want to protect them how they protected me.”

Ben was silent for a long while before he said the one thing Rey had never been expecting. “Marriage will solve the problem of the resistance.”

“Who’s marriage?”

“Ours.”

“How?” Rey practically growls. 

“A marriage contract will be expected, it can act as a treaty. The HoloNet will be too busy calling the union of Palpatine’s lost heiress and Vader’s heir fate and blithering on about weddings to pay attention to it.” 

“A treaty?”

“Of sorts. An opportunity for the Resistance to lay down arms,” Ben affirmed. 

“I want the General involved in the treaty negotiations.” 

“This is not a negotiation.” 

“Contracts involve two parties who compromise, that’s a negotiation Ben.” Like always, he stilled just the slightest bit at his given name. But just as quickly as his brow furrowed, it was gone. 

“A negotiation occurs between two equal parties. The Resistance is a band of rebels who are no real military threat to the Empire and have nothing to offer.”

“They have me,” Rey fired back, defiant. 

“You?” Ben asked, stalking forward, determination set in his visage as he spoke slowly but with meaning. “The Resistance does not support Empress Rey Palpatine. This treaty will be between the Empire, of which you are Empress, and the Resistance.” 

That stopped Rey in her tracks. She feels like she’s trapped in an escape pod, hurtling towards an asteroid and unable to do anything to stop the impact. Or maybe she has already made impact and is trying to pick herself up from the ashes, trying to move forward. Because Ben was asking her something between all this, he was asking her who she will choose. The Resistance, or him? 

“I still want the General there,” Rey settled on saying instead, her heart pounding against her chest at her decision. “And,” she started, but stopped herself. Taking a deep breath, Rey tried again. “And if an agreement is not reached, I want her and her party unharmed and supplied with rations and fuel for their departure. I don’t want to pursue them, I want to focus on making the galaxy a better place, with or without them.” 

Ben was silent and unmoving for the longest time and Rey restrained herself from flinching under his stare. Finally, when Rey was about to speak again, he nodded and she let out a deep breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “I’ll give you the coordinates of where we’re headed. Everyone with me remains unharmed.” 

As if a peace offering, Ben stuck his hand out with Rey’s necklace from Pasaana. Slowly, Rey reached for it. amazed that her fingers felt the smooth wood as if they existed in her current realm. “Dyad’s are two beings who exist in the Force as one. I am with you just as soundly as you are here with me.” 

Taking the necklace from his outstretched hand, Rey looked up at him, wondering if he would explain more as she twirled the beads between her fingers nervously. Instead, he asked her a question, “Why now?”

“You told me to let the past die. Kill it if I have to. The Emperor is the past.”

Shaking his head, Ben offered again, “I offered you my hand a year ago. I offered to take you to Exegol hours ago. Why now?”

“You asked me what I wanted.”

“A few times, if I remember correctly,” Ben huffed. 

“I want to be good. I want to do something good. I don’t want to be him,” she whispered, speaking her greatest fear aloud for the first time. Ben is looking at her intently, saying nothing, but it is softer, the lines of his face, the usual harsh lines of his lips, everything is softer. “Nobody knows me, not really. And I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“I know you. And you’re not alone.” 

She looks up at him, at his open brown eyes and wonders how she didn’t take his hand nearly a year ago. “Neither are you.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I ever mentioned but I do not have a beta, all mistakes are my own.

It was fitting that the graveyard of an Empire, of millions of lost lives, lingered on Kef Bir. The planet vibrated violently where the gray waves crashed ashore. A storm was brewing in the air and the static of the cloudy skies clashed with the darkness spilling out of the mausoleum for the Galactic Empire. It left her teeth on edge. 

When they met a young woman named Jannah, their greeting towards her group was drawn weapons and accusatory stares. They were unafraid to shoot first and ask questions later. The longer Jannah spoke, Rey realized that the darkness was whispering to them, attempting to seduce them so they would fall into its clutches. Her weapon fell to her side. 

If Rey ever had a doubt the Holocron was not here, standing on the cliff overlooking the husk of the fallen Death Star and feeling the malefic energy trying to consume her would have assured her she had found it. From afar, the Death Star looked like a skeleton bleeding it’s sorrow, but upon closer inspection, it was actually bleeding the dark side of the Force. 

As they spoke, Rey kept an eye to the sky, waiting for Ben. She was anxious for more reasons than one. In the back of her mind, she wondered if he was actually coming. Most of her life was spent waiting for someone, but she doesn’t know if she’ll ever quietly wait for Ben if he doesn’t come. 

Rey realized her thoughts were bordering on more morose and it had to be the darkness. She wondered if Poe and Finn felt it too? Chewie stayed behind on the ship to assess the damage with BB-8, but Poe was restless and frustrated while Finn was uneasy--such a far cry from their joyous laughs on the Falcon not too long ago. 

After Jannah had promised to take them to the Death Star in the morning, Rey breathed a sigh of relief. Leaving the boys behind would be hard, but she knew this is what she had to do. Going to Exegol and facing the Emperor never included anyone but herself until, well, until a few hours ago. When she leaves with Ben, Rey has no doubt Poe and Finn will get to the Holocron on the Death Star themselves (whether on some fool hardy idea of saving her or saving the galaxy, she doesn’t know), but this headstart Jannah has unwittingly given her made all the difference. 

It should not take Ben long. He would have taken a more direct route than they did, being the Emperor and able to travel where he pleases. Rey would not admit it, but she was actually surprised he didn’t make it to Kef Bir before their own arrival. 

His Force signature in the atmosphere alerted her to his presence and Rey looked towards Poe and Chewie toiling over the Falcon with BB-8 rolling around their feet, to Finn talking to Jannah, to Threepio who was engaged in a one sided conversation, and realized with a thickness in her throat that she doesn’t know how to say goodbye. At the Resistance base, it was always wishing safe missions to each other, with every intention of coming back, but Rey doesn’t know if she’s coming back from this as _just Rey_. 

The Upsilon class transport lands regally in the field next to the Falcon and Rey stands still, watching as the ramp lowers. The frantic footsteps around her should not surprise her, but they are a startling reminder of what she is about to do. 

“Do you think he’s alone,” Poe asked, barely out of breath as he stood just behind where she stood vigil. 

“If he is, we can take him,” Finn affirmed, unholstering his blaster and nodding to Chewie to undoubtedly prepare for emergency take off. Not that they would get very far. 

“No.” She does not realize she has spoken until Chewie stopped what he was doing to look at her in question.

“ _What’s going on Sunshine_ ?” Chewie asked into the stunned silence, because he was always far more astute than Poe and Finn combined. “ _You’re not doing this yourself_.” 

“He’s taking me to Exegol.” At this, Rey finally tore her eyes away from the transport, from Ben’s burning Force signature, to look at these people who have had her back this past year. Walking away from them had seemed like such an easy concept because Rey is used to doing things herself, making her own decisions without regard to anyone else. Right now, these three look to her as if she’s lost her mind and honestly, maybe she had, but this was her decision and she will be steadfast. 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Poe rushed out, his good arm waving around in disbelief, “We’re on this mission to get _you_ to Exegol.” 

“I was never going to take any of you with me,” Rey sighed. “It’s not safe.” 

“Okay, that’s bantha shit,” Finn snapped. “We’re in this together Rey.” 

“You can’t go with him Rey!” Poe cried out, his good arm gesturing wildly to the transport that quietly sits Kylo Ren. “You know he’s unhinged!” 

“Is he threatening you? Making you do this?” Finn demanded, his face stoney in his anger. 

“If he’s forcing you, no one would blame you. He’s been inside my head too Rey, I know what it’s like,” Poe implored. 

“But you haven’t been inside his,” Rey replied, her voice calmer than she felt on the inside. Rey wonders, if for all his life, anyone had ever tried to understand Ben Solo, and thus Kylo Ren was born. “Send my apologies to the General. When this is done, I’ll be in touch, I’m going to need her expertise.” 

“ _Sunshine,_ ” Chewie asked, “ _how did you communicate with him? How does he know where we are?_ ” 

Smiling sadly, Rey didn’t even have the words to describe their bond, and even if she did, she doesn’t think they would understand. So she settled on, “Through the Force.” It was mysterious, a non answer if there ever was one, but it was all she could offer. Another smile and a, “I hope to see you when it’s over,” before she is off. 

Rey turned around and headed towards Ben, her heart heavy and light all at once--she was doing what needed to be done, even if it meant leaving her friends behind. 

Only, Poe and Finn ran in front of her and created a two man blockade. “We’re not letting you leave with him.” 

Sighing in frustration, Rey nearly growled, “This is my choice.” 

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Poe retorted sardonically. 

“Poe, Finn” Rey ground out, “step aside.”

“Rey, we are on a mission and I am your commanding officer,” Poe tried again. “If you leave, you’re disobeying direct orders. Walking away to him, they’ll call you a traitor.” 

Poe repeated exactly what Ben told her earlier and it doesn’t bother her the way it rankled when Ben said it--perhaps she’d come to realize the truth to his words. But Rey was never good at taking orders, not from Plutt, not from Luke, not from any number of thugs on Jakku, and certainly not Poe. “There’s no need, I’m going to put an end to all of this fighting.” 

“Are you choosing him Rey?” Finn asked, incredulous, no doubt remembering Rey sharing her vision of the Sith throne with him. He had assured her she could make her own choices, her own destiny, that she wouldn’t end up there. But, what if she had to end up there to destroy it? Wouldn’t it be better if the throne lay in her hands, for her to destroy or remake in her image, than to wait for another creature to crawl up and wreak havoc on the galaxy?

Is this what it had always been like for Ben? Why no one had ever chose him? Because all they could see was the dark and not the light inside him? His potential to destroy, not create? “If I am, Finn?” Rey asked heatedly. “What would it matter? We’ve come to an agreement; the galaxy is just as much mine as it is his.” 

“So you’re doing what Leia told you not to do?” Poe inquired, his face contorting in anger Rey had never seen before. “You’re calling yourself Empress? Are we supposed to bow to you now? To him?”

“ _Do you know what you’re doing Rey?_ ” Chewie asked from behind her, interrupting Poe’s tirade. 

“Yes,” she answered Chewie. “I know exactly what I’m doing. The Resistance will remain under my protection. And you didn’t seem to have any qualms about this earlier Poe.”

“That’s different,” he fired back. “We’d be doing this together, the entire Resistance together with you, not with him.”

“You mean, it’s different because you thought I’d be a puppet? Instead of the token Jedi I’d be the token Empress?” Rey fumed. Is she never to make her own decisions and live her own life? First Plutt’s scavenger stuck under his boot, then the Resistance’s token Jedi and Luke Skywalker’s unwanted apprentice. She had been elevated to a symbol of a fight the galaxy is tired of fighting and she doesn’t even know what she stands for anymore. Is she never to belong? 

The silence stretched before them, Poe and Rey both unwilling to give an inch. 

“So this is it?” Finn asked, his shoulders tense and his brow furrowed in a distant glare never directed at Rey before. “All that we fought for, it was for nothing? You’re going to sit there by his side and subjugate the Galaxy?” 

“I am not _subjugating_ anyone,” Rey exclaimed. “I’m going to take my chances on _me._ I cannot let the galaxy fall into the hands of Emperor Palpatine again.” 

“No, you’re just gonna let it fall into the hands of Empress Palpatine,” Poe fired back. 

Finn sucked in a breath of surprise as Chewie railed at Poe for his impulsivity. And Rey, well Rey didn’t know how she felt. She could tell her breath caught in her throat and hurt on the exhale, that her eyesight was getting blurry, and that her hands were trembling at her sides, but everything else felt numb.

She had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, she had hoped they would understand. Gathering her strength, and a little anger, she called on the Force lifted her hand while speaking clearly, “You will let me leave and not follow me.” It took a few seconds longer than usual but they were parroting the words back to her and stepping away. 

With one sad look to Chewie, dear Chewie who was letting her go with nothing more than a drawn face, Rey was off, running up the transport’s ramp, hoping her friends would forgive her one day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's a little short but we get a lot of Ben and Rey interacting next chapter. 
> 
> Also, next chapter has one my favorite scenes so far, I can't wait to post it. Drop me line and let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took a while. I've been working on the 2nd part of this story and decided to make a few adjustments here. And then naturally I hated it. But here we are and i like this iteration.

Rey watched as the ramp rose with a hiss as the cabin was once again pressurized. She stared at the closed door longer than she should have, remembering why she is here and why she needed to leave. Belatedly, she realized the taste of salt on her tongue was from her own tears. Hastily wiping them away with the back of her hand, she turned away in resignation. Leaving her only friends behind was harder than she had imagined. She hoped it was for the best. 

Slowly, Rey made her way through the transport to the cockpit where Ben waited, sitting in the pilot seat and toggling at the control panel. He paused when he sensed her arrival. Turning his head slightly, he wordlessly jutted his chin towards the co-pilot seat beside him, asking her to sit. But Rey stood there transfixed. It was the first time in months she had seen him in person, the first time she had ever seen him while not strapped to a chair, or handcuffed, or fighting each other. This was her first time  _ seeing  _ Ben, not as an adversary, but simply as a man.

He was large, filling the pilot’s chair so completely it was almost comical. Yet she spied the broad set of his shoulders and the large grip of his hands on the console, and she wondered to herself how she ever bested him in battle. By all accounts, Ben should have crushed her, quite literally. When they first met, she was more bone than muscle, a slip of a thing worn away by constant hunger on Jakku. Since then she has had constant meals, less hard labor, and access to medical care, yet Ben still dwarfed her, even sitting down, yet they are still evenly matched in battle.

He paused what he was doing and turned to actually look at her standing at the edge of the cockpit. When their eyes met, she was broken from her reverie and flushed, realizing she was wasting time and probably staring. 

“You came,” spilled out of her mouth before she could stop it as she approached the proffered seat. Why did she think he wouldn’t? Perhaps because the only people who have ever come back for her were Finn, and Han, and Chewie and right now she was leaving them behind.

“I did,” he nodded in his low baritone. “Sit, we need to leave before your friends attempt a rescue.” 

And that snapped her out of everything. “They won’t.” 

“You made friends with my mother’s lap dog and a traitor to the First Order. Forgive me for doubting you.” 

Rey finally took the seat beside him, sitting carefully while pulling her seat buckles around her securely. Ben waits patiently before launching the take off procedure. When they are breaking the atmosphere, Rey did not take her eyes off the speck that the Falcon becomes. Quietly, she spoke into the din, “They won’t follow me. I did that mind thing.” 

And for some reason, that gave Ben pause before he entered coordinates of where they must be making their first jump. He mumbled something that Rey can’t parse out. As soon as they are out of the atmosphere, she’s turning to him. 

“What?” Rey asked, unsure if she heard him correctly. 

“I felt you pulling energy from the Force, the dark side. I thought they had just upset you.” 

Rey was quiet for a moment, taking in what he said. “I didn’t use the dark side,” Rey protested. 

“You did,” Ben affirmed, his face brooking no argument. “You just don’t know you did because you don’t know the dark side.” 

“You don’t know what I’ve learned since we last fought,” she fired back defiantly. 

“But I know who trained you,” Ben answered while navigating to the nearest hyperspace lane. “Luke would never and neither would Leia. Leia couldn’t even handle having me in her home, and Luke couldn’t help me as a student. What could they have taught you about the dark side but their own fears?” 

And that had Rey silent, the only sound between them the gentle hum of the engine. Ben was right. She didn’t need it said aloud, she doubted she ever would, but this close to him, she can feel how absolutely right he thinks he is on the edge of her mind. She has never felt a Force presence the way she felt Ben, not when they’re fighting, and definitely not when they’re not fighting. Rey blamed the way the Force felt so comforting in that moment on why she continued to speak. “Luke wouldn’t teach me at first. He said I went straight to the dark. I think it scared him. He said--” and Rey cut herself off, glancing at Ben to see him freeze as much as she had. He probably didn’t want to hear about his uncle, or her training, when he had offered to train her instead, so Rey said nothing more, hoping he would let the subject drop. 

“He said,” Ben prompted instead, his shoulders tense and his full lips pressed into a firm line. 

And Rey wished she could shrink in her seat. “He said he hadn’t seen this much raw power since you,” she whispered quietly, watching his every move as he took in her confession, or rather, Luke’s confession.

Stiffly, Ben nodded before his brow furrowed, “Did he know about your--”

Rey cut him off because she really did not need to be reminded about her heritage again. “Leia said he suspected.”

“So he knew.” 

Just then, the console began beeping and Rey decided now was the time to change the subject. Flying she could focus on for hours. On the console sat a pyramid that glowed dark green with wires almost grotesquely protruding from it, as if the pyramid was sentient and being invaded. “So this,” she said, gesturing to the piece as she unbuckled and scooted closer to get a better look. . 

“Will show us to Exegol.”

Only Rey didn’t hear Ben finish speaking as her finger landed on the darker edges of the pyramid and the ship slipped away. 

She found herself in a field of green. More green and sunlight than she had ever seen in her life. The sun was warm on her back, the grass moved gently with the wind that caressed her skin, and her lightsaber was firmly in her hand. 

In the distance, a dark figure made its way towards her. Shielding her eyes from the brightness, she could barely make out the mask, the cape, the cross guard saber igniting an angry red and her breath hitched in her throat. The sky darkened and a quick glance up showed the sun disappearing behind dark and angry clouds. Looking back at the figure, she no longer saw Kylo Ren, she saw the disfigured shape of Snoke in his gaudy robes, walking towards her, closer than Kylo had been before. The wind picked up, carrying whispers of her name and she turned to see who was calling out to her. 

No one. There was no one. 

And then, just meters before her, stood the Emperor instead of Snoke. His robes were eerily still in the storm building around them. Lightning struck the sky behind him and suddenly he was gone in the flash of blue that blinded her. She stumbled back on a gasp of thick air and narrowly fell before righting herself. It is darker now and when the sky opened and rain poured down on her, Rey was faced with herself. Clad in black and armed with a red saber, she lunges and Rey must think quickly because her saber was in her hand but it was not ignited. 

They parried blows in a frenzy and Rey was thrown, hardly aware that her lightsaber shone in vibrant purple.This woman, this vision, looked like her but was not her. The power behind her strikes, the way they jarred Rey’s entire body and rattled her teeth felt realer than anything Rey had ever experienced. It was the flash of orange in her eyes that gave Rey pause and it was her undoing. With a large, shining red arc, vision-Rey’s saber cut down and sliced through Rey’s arm. Rey’s saber fell. It rolled away and with it her hand, still clutching her now useless weapon. 

Screaming. Someone is screaming and Rey only realized it was her when she could hardly feel her throat anymore. The ground, the grass once so lively, was now dead and decayed. It rumbled along with the cadence of the storm above her and opened up; down she fell into the dirt, the rocks, the crumbling earth, and she landed in ruins. An eerie blue glow was cast around the cavernous room and Rey reached for something, her saber, her hand? Did she have a hand? Before she can check, her eyes zoomed in on a rock immediately before her.

No, a statue? A chair? 

_ No _ . 

A throne. 

It laid cracked straight down the middle, crumbling, broken beyond any craftsmans repair. 

But her hand was still reaching, reaching,  _ reaching _ for something. Did she have a hand? And the floor slipped out from under her, tilting until it was beside her and she was sliding down the ground and scrambling for purchase, to get up right, to find her footing, when suddenly, she landed on her feet. 

The hallways around her are strangely familiar. They echo memories she cannot recall. A door is thrown open and a child is pulled through by faceless arms, crying that she didn’t want to leave. The child is  _ her _ . Just as the realization sunk in, before she could reach for herself (did she have a hand?), the room is gone in a blur. 

White poppies spring up from the ground and the sky is a brilliant blue. Was this the field she lost her hand in? A baby cries in the distance. Rey turned to find the babe. A woman in white with a swirling bun covering her ear was cradling a baby swaddled in white cloth, cooing and shushing the infant, and Rey’s heart aches at the mother she never knew. 

Wind whips past her ears and Rey turns once again and the field is gone. Her hand found what it was looking for. She has a hand in hers; it was clasped in a warm one as she stood in a room she has never before seen. Her clothes are dry, (was she ever wet?), clean and warm. Her eyes fall on two chairs, sitting on a dais with sunlight overcasting a grey warmth on the space. Thrones, her mind supplied, the chairs are thrones.

She remembered her hand, and suddenly it was squeezed as if in confirmation that she did have a hand. Rey looked to her right and the eyes staring back at her took her breath away.  _ Ben _ . 

When everything fell away, the humming of the ship is still there, and so is Ben’s worried Force signature. When she opened her eyes, it was to Ben’s brown ones looking at her in barely concealed concern. Not the ones from the interrogation, but from the throne room, after he killed Snoke; so big and hopeful but squinted into concern and Rey realized she was crouched on the floor, her hands were shaking, and she was seconds from crying. Ben must have realized her distress, must have realized she had a vision, because he coaxed her hand from her,  _ her hand,  _ and dragged her from the cockpit. 

They walked and Ben didn’t let go of her hand. Rey cannot be bothered to look at anything on this shiny ship she would otherwise be enamoured with because her eyes are focused only on the broad expanse of Ben’s back, remembering his chocolate brown eyes. 

He led her to a room with a sitting area and a bed in a corner. They are chambers. Rey cannot focus on this right now. Ben shuffled her towards the low couch until she sat down. Moments later a cup of water was thrust into her hands. Ben watched her drink with shaking fingers while he sat across from her, waiting and staring. 

When all the water was nearly gone and she was sure she wasn’t going to cry, she asked, “Did you--” 

Her voice cracked but Ben didn't care, he cut her off with a sharp nod. “Your walls weren’t up.” She didn’t know if that meant she was projecting or he went looking because she hadn’t been responsive but she can’t find it in her to care. 

But she could feel he was sorry for the intrusion. “It’s okay,” she whispered, setting her water aside and pulling her legs up onto the couch to hug her knees to her chest. They sat quietly for a handful of moments, Rey digesting what she had seen and Ben eyeing her warily, unsure of what to do. 

“Do these, these visions,” Rey began, her chin resting on the top of her knees, “do they mean different things by the artifact that brings them about?” She is surprised at her own ability to articulate. 

Ben tilted his head as if he wasn’t quite sure what Rey meant and before she could even speak the words about the Skywalker saber and the sith knife, she felt Ben’s recognition across their bond. “Force visions are force visions. It doesn’t matter if the artifact is light or dark.” Ben paused, bending forward and resting his elbows on his knees while his eyes never left her. “What did you see when you touched Anakin’s lightsaber?” 

Unsure of how to explain the constant and halting vision she experienced in Maz’s castle on Takodana, let alone get her voice to work, Rey conjured the images in her mind and without even thinking about it, opened their bond, hoping Ben would see. And he does. Though his eyes widened when he realized what Rey was doing, he said nothing as he sifted through the images. “And the Sith blade?” he asked, his voice deep and scratchy and Rey does not dwell on how he could know about the blade causing her vision. Again, Rey sent those images to Ben, a little more shy this time. She didn’t know if it was because she was suddenly aware of the intimacy of sharing thoughts or because the Sith blade had shown her the Sith throne. 

“When our hands touched,” Rey began, though she was unsure what it was she was trying to say, what she’s trying to explain. “From that vision, neither of us turned,” Rey spoke after a long moment of searching Ben’s unwavering brown eyes. 

Ben ruminated on this briefly, his jaw working before he sat back. “There’s still time for that yet.”

Rey shakes her head at this. She cannot tell if that was a joke but it hardly matters. Not because she won’t turn or that he won’t, that’s not the point anymore because she’s  _ here _ . “I’m standing beside you. You’re beside me. Neither of us have turned,” she reiterated. 

“Force visions are not wrong,” Ben admitted. “It’s how we interpret them that are wrong.” He paused before continuing, “For my grandfather, the Jedi said he was the chosen one, meant to bring balance to the force. He did no such thing.”

Rey blanched at this because all she has ever known was that Darth Vader turned and destroyed the Sith, restoring balance. “But, he killed Emperor Palpatine.” 

“Did he?” Ben asked with a tilt of his head. The deep timber of his voice was assured and calm. “The Emperor is alive. Vader destroyed the axis of which the dark side orbited at the time. It allowed Luke to cultivate the light in its place. But where there is light there needs to be dark for true balance. Vader created a power vacuum for the dark to rise again.”

Rey looked at Ben, really looked at the way his mind was clearly working through something, the way his fingers kept fidgeting and crinkling his leather gloves, as if he had been trying to piece together a stubborn puzzle for some time. “So, you’re saying Vader  _ wasn’t _ the chosen one?” 

“A Chosen one shall come, born of no father, and  _ through him _ will ultimate balance in the Force be restored,” Ben recited from memory, leaning back slowly as he spoke, yet still not answering Rey’s question. “I always wondered why the prophecy never said he would bring balance, but through him balance would be restored.” 

As realization dawns on her, Rey slowly unwound her hands from her knees as her feet gently drop to the floor. “Through him means,” and she paused here to look up and found Ben already looking at her with an intensity that should scare her. “You.” 

“Us,” Ben amended quickly, and continued speaking before Rey could throw all her questions at him. “We are a dyad, two who are one in the Force.” 

“How can two people be the chosen one?” 

“How are two one in the force?” Ben countered, standing and beginning to pace. “Vader  _ is _ the chosen one. ‘Through him’ leads to us.”

“It leads to you,” Rey corrected. “I may not be nobody anymore, but I’m not important here.” 

“You are to me,” Ben insisted, his voice quiet like it was in the throne room on the Supremacy. Rey met his eyes, worried as they are, but this time her breath caught in her throat at his fervor. She had no doubt that she stood beside him, not here, not where they are standing side by side, fighting side by side, but she had no place in this prophecy. She doesn’t know what her place is as Empress, as a Palpatine, or as an ex-Resistance member, but looking at Ben and his determination, she wondered if she even needed to know so long as he believed in her and he would let her believe in him. 

Slowly, Ben looked away and continued. “Vader’s choices led us here. Killing Palpatine allowed the New Republic and New Jedi order to form. It created the conditions in which Palpatine could rise again.” And suddenly, he is pacing again, his shoulders tense as he paced the length of their sitting area. “The Battle of Jakku, Palpatine’s final act, brought scavengers to the surface and made the planet fade into obscurity, allowing your parents to hide you there where you hid your Force sensitivity. Don’t you see?” Ben asked earnestly, his face flushed with the most passion Rey had ever seen outside of their fights. “Vader led  _ us _ here.” 

Standing, Rey took a step towards Ben. If he looked large in the ship’s pilot seat, he’s a behemoth standing before her hardly two feet away. When they fought, Ben moved so fluidly it was difficult to really see him, to assess _ him  _ and not simply just the blazing arc of his lightsaber. But they were not fighting and Ben still looked like he was fighting a battle. Unlike their last few fights, he looked like he emerged victorious in his knowledge. Perhaps the prophecy had been bothering him longer than he would admit. 

“I guess we can finish what your grandfather started,” Rey responded lightly. And to her surprise, Ben huffed a laugh and she preened at getting a smile out of this usually dour man. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That vision huh? The vision and the conversation about the chosen one is my favorite. I've never liked the way the movies believe balance is only achieved on the light side of the Force. Or that Anakin brought back balance. We're gonna be heading towards gray.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I mentioned but I don't have a beta. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> Rise of Kylo Ren comic spoilers below as well, beware!

They had reached a quiet peace after they discussed the prophecy. Though Rey doubted Ben’s insistence that she would play a role in this fight for balance, helping Ben achieve his purpose strengthened her resolve that she made the right choice; she will see this through with everything she has for Ben and for the galaxy. 

There are hours to spend in hyperspace before they would arrive at Exegol. Ben gestured to the bed in the corner of the room, silently asking if Rey would like to sleep. And she did, she really did. Rey didn’t realize how exhausted she was until her head hit the soft pillow and even softer mattress. It wasn’t long before she fell asleep--she wasn’t even sure if Ben had left the room yet. She found she didn’t care. On Jakku, anyone or anything in her territory at night was a danger she could not ignore lest she not wake the next morning. It had taken her more time than she was willing to admit to grow accustomed to sleeping near people on the Resistance base. But Ben, his presence didn’t unsettle her at all and she wasn’t in any state to pick that fact apart. 

Later, Rey is still unsure how much later, she woke to Ben’s ungloved hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her awake. She was so disarmed by the face staring down at her--his constellation of freckles and the large scar she gave him was cast in shadows while he was backlit by a halo of light-- that she missed what he said and quite embarrassingly asked “Huh?”

His lips quirked the slightest bit as he repeated himself, stepping back just the slightest bit to let her shift and start to sit up. “We should arrive within the hour. I’d suggest eating and freshening up now.” 

Blinking slowly up at him as the words sunk into her sleep addled mind, she nodded and mumbled an “Okay,” while pushing blankets she didn’t remember grabbing off her. He stepped further away, pointing towards the refresher before turning away to presumably give her space to freshen up. She stood and stretched, taking in her surroundings and remembering where she was and why. After using the refresher and splashing some water on her face, Rey headed toward the cockpit to retrieve her bag. She rooted around for rations as she made her way back to the suite, not much up to exploring the ship when she knew what awaited her in the coming hours even though her fingers itched for something to do. 

Returning to the room, Rey sat herself at the small table and began to shove veg-meat into her mouth. When her mouth was sufficiently, and embarrassingly, full, Ben re-entered the room carrying plates of food. He laid them down on the table and sat across from her, raising a brow at her rations and stating, “We have a synthesizer on board.” He pushed a plate of steaming food towards Rey and she nearly choked on her mouthful of veg-meat. 

Ben tucked into his food without another word and there is nothing but the silent hum of hyperspace, the clink of utensils, and Ben chewing. Rey’s throat was dry as she sat, absorbing what was happening. The veg-meat took more effort to swallow and it burned going down. Ben was calm, eating his food as if this meant nothing and Rey didn’t know what to do with herself. With the Resistance, she was always reminded to eat, reminded to visit the mess hall, reminded to grab ration packs before missions, but no one has ever  _ brought  _ her food. Not on Jakku, not at the Resistance, and not with Luke. Food was earned. Either through scavenging, working at the Resistance (though Leia tried to explain otherwise), or finding her own food on Ach-To when the rations ran out. And Ben placed a plate of food identical to his own before her and he was eating as if it meant nothing. It meant  _ everything. _

When Rey continued to sit and stare periodically at the food or Ben, Ben stopped chewing and looked up at her with a furrowed brow. Rey realized the mistake she had made too late. Before she can even reach for her fork, Ben spoke, “Do you not like it?”

“No,” Rey replied hastily. “No, I just, I’ve never had any of this before,” Rey said instead, her voice quiet as she watched Ben’s curiosity quickly become a frown. 

There is no pity when Ben explained the bulk of the meal is soypro, a meat substitute infinitely better than ration veg-meat (his words, not hers), that the green pieces are charbote root, the small yellow kernels are called corn, the orange bits were protato (Rey had never seen them outside of their dried form in ration packs), there was a brown protein enriched sauce, and the small dish to the side included an assortment of berries. It was a plate of what she assumed was a balanced meal and Ben had put it together for her. 

When he finished speaking, Rey realized her knuckles were white around the fork in her hand. Loosening her grip and reaching for the knife, Rey swallowed the knot in her throat and expressed her gratitude quietly. Ben nodded but said nothing more, though Rey was acutely aware of him watching her out of the corner of his eye as she ate. And she ate. After the first tentative bite, Rey ate more enthusiastically. Everything on her plate was richer and more flavorful than anything she had ever eaten before. When she was finished, Rey hummed pleasantly to herself before reaching for a berry, a treat she had never even known about until she arrived at the Resistance. It was when the berry’s sweetness exploded on her tongue that they dropped out of hyperspace. 

Eyes wide, Rey looked up to Ben who she found was still watching her, having finished his own food. “We still have time,” Ben said, his eyes never leaving her. She noted the way his eyes fell to her lips briefly before making their way back up to her eyes and she suppressed a shiver. “Exegol is surrounded by asteroids. We need to fly through it manually. There is still time before we approach. Please, finish.” 

Rey nodded and reached for another berry but was interrupted by her commlink ringing and vibrating in her bag. When it appeared it would not stop, Rey dropped the berry with a huff and reached for her comm. It was message after message from Poe, Finn, one from Chewie, and one final one from Leia. Rey could physically feel Ben’s presence leave her mind before he even began to stand. “Stay,” Rey said before she could even think, the word frantically tumbling out of her mouth. “I don’t want to listen to them asking me to come back and questioning me right now. Stay,” she repeated as she dropped her comm back into her bag. 

While Rey didn’t mind being alone, the way Ben’s mind pulled back from her was startling. It made her frantic as she reached out for him physically where she didn’t know how to reach out mentally or through the Force. 

A moment passed and Ben settled himself back comfortably in his chair, and on the outer reaches of her mind. This is the longest they have been in each other’s presence and the thrumming strength of his Force energy floating just beyond the reaches of her mind, just there for her to grab onto if she wants to, was a comfort she did not know she could have until he took it away. Another moment passed before he spoke. “If they are questioning you, why do you think they’ll agree to a treaty?”

Relaxing her shoulders, Rey slowly chewed through a tart berry before answering. “I don’t,” she answered honestly. “But I want to build something for them to come back to if they won’t agree. I want them to stop fighting because they want to, not because they’ve lost hope, but because the world we can build is better than all this fighting.” 

Rey watched as he stared silently at Rey’s berries, as she picked them up one by one and savored them with the short time she had left here in the safety of this ship. “Are you going to say let the past die again?” Rey asked with no real heat as she licked berry stains from her fingers. 

There is silence for far longer than Rey anticipated. Peeking a glance at him, Ben’s gaze is transfixed on her hands, so Rey waved them a bit to get his attention. Shaking his head, Ben looked her dead in the eye while shuffling his feet, “It wouldn’t be my worst idea.” 

“The Resistance isn’t my past. They’re my present. Those people still matter to me. You tell me to let the past die, kill it if I have to. But what of your past? Of Darth Vader? Is the past inconvenient only when it suits you?” Rey should be angry, she should be outraged with this line of questioning. But she already agreed to fulfill Anakin Skywalker’s legacy, albeit jokingly. 

Ben was silent once again and Rey wondered if talking about his grandfather was too much for him. She was sitting up straight, poised to apologize and change the subject, but Ben remarked instead, “I thought Vader’s unfinished work was my destiny, my future. I was misguided.”

Rey wanted to scoff. That was literally the understatement of the millenium. “When Han and Leia weren’t there, Snoke and Palpatine were in my head.” 

It lasted less than a second, but Rey envisioned herself watching a ship take off over green frields, over grey buildings, over more fields, a woman always walking out the door, the lone companionship of a gold droid, kind faces once open now accusatory and cruel, and there was always a head splitting voice in the dark recesses of her mind before she realized these were Ben’s memories and she pulled herself out and away from Ben’s mind. And Rey is glad she had remained silent. Ben wasn’t just misguided, he was preyed upon and manipulated, and it was hard to see that reality beyond what were seemingly his own choices

She was startled, grasping for words to explain that she understood. “I’m sorry, I didn’t---” but Ben stood before she could finish. 

“We should land,” he said gruffly instead. 

As he’s walking away, Rey blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. “You wanted to belong.” Ben stopped. His hands squeezed at his sides but he made no move to turn around. “You wanted to feel loved and wanted. I know that feeling.” Rey stood slowly, as if sudden movements would cause him to sprint away, making her way around the table but not doing any more to close the distance between them. “Jakku was horrible and the Resistance wasn’t everything I wanted, but I don’t want to kill my past.” 

“You don’t know my past. You all think you do, but you don’t”

“Then tell me so I know.” 

He didn’t. He showed her. He showed her Luke standing over him when he woke, of Forcing him back and the way his stomach dropped when he thought he killed him. He showed her how he escaped the hut, how the academy was already up in flames, how the students challenged him and all he wanted to do was get away and grieve, to get to some place quiet. How they followed him. How their deaths were accidents. How he fell into the villainy because it’s all anyone could see anymore, so what was the point of it all anyways?

She was breathing heavily when the images faded. Did Ben feel this when he re-lived her parents leaving her? Her chest felt hollowed out anew and her hands reached behind her to steady herself on the table. 

Turning his head, Ben kept his shoulders in a perfectly straight line, unwilling to falter under her scrutiny. “Why are you here to kill the Emperor if not to kill your past? You said yourself that’s what you wanted.” 

Rey was so caught up in her own mind, she could do nothing but answer honestly. “I want to let it go, let him and my parents and the life I could have had go, to accept the past I had to live because of it. But I can’t without facing him. I can’t decide my own future without doing this.” 

“A future where you’re Rey Palpatine?”

Her surname shattered her from her reverie. Ben’s memories were unceremoniously boxed away for now and Rey straightened her shoulders. “A future where I get to decide what being Rey Palpatine means.” 

And without waiting for a response, Rey walked ahead and past him. But she hesitated, stopping just a few feet ahead of him. She turned to look back at him, much the same way he had looked at her, and his face was full of vulnerability, crestfallen and hopeful all at once. “And a future where you get to decide what being Kylo Ren, or Ben Solo, means.” 

She took her place in the co-pilot's chair quickly after. Ben was slower, but she did not prod him and eventually he joined her and together, they navigated the minefield around Exegol. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't know if Exegol is surrounded by asteroids? I mean, it looked like it was hard to get there? So we're going with that as canon. 
> 
> "A future where I get to decide what being Rey Palpatine means.” Is my FAVORITE line and really inspired this whole fic. I didn't appreciate the way the movies wouldn't let Rey decide who she was and understand what her name and her family meant, and all that it could mean. Instead, she discarded it and took up another man's name. 
> 
> Leave me a comment, I love hearing what you guys think!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for TROS ahead. Lines that don't belong to me clearly don't belong to me. I took quite a bit of the exegol scene but I made it better.

Exegol was a dark planet prone to thunder and blindingly bright flashes of lightning. The asteroid minefield didn’t unsettle Rey the way the atmosphere on the planet grated on her skin. Rey had only grabbed her lightsaber and strapped a blaster to her thigh, just in case, before they disembarked. At the foot of the ramp, standing beside Ben and looking upon the massive stone of the Sith Temple that glowed blue even without the lightning, Rey paused. True darkness awaited them in the dark mouth of the temple. She felt it in the air, pressing into her lungs and trying to force its way into her heart. 

Ben turned to look at her. His expression was unreadable but he looked nearly ethereal in the gray blue shadow of this planet, even with his eyes dark and serious. Rey realized with a start that he was not wearing his mask and it struck a chord in her she could not understand. 

“What I know, you know.” Rey met his gaze with a questioning look of her own. So he continued. “We are a dyad. My knowledge of the Force, it is yours when you call upon it. It has always been yours.” 

Rey nodded, her chest heavy as she faced the temple. This was very new information for her, but she filed it away and decided to deal with it later, when this was all over. Ben took the first step. He turned toward the ship and raised the ramp. Without any hesitation he was on his way. Behind him, Rey’s eyes catch on the way his cloak billowed around his legs as he led the way into the temple. And then they were submerged in the eerie blue glow that felt too dim and too dark all at once.

Ben stopped in the middle of a hexagonal sigil on the stone floor, his arm shooting out to stop Rey with him. Just as suddenly as they stopped, the floor beneath them shifted and Rey was frantically reaching for his still outstretched arm as she steadied herself and looked around to see what was happening. All around them as they were lowered beneath the temple Rey came nearly face to face with statues so massive she felt miniscule next to them. 

Lower and lower they went and the tighter Rey’s hand on Ben’s arm got. But he said nothing, even when she lingered too long to feel the reassuring warmth radiating through the wool of his sleeve. 

Her eyes quickly scanned the room they were in and Rey noted how truly colossal the statues that lined the walls appeared. Like sentinels and keepers of the temple, they stood as monuments of a bygone era.  _ Sith lords  _ popped into her head and she realized with a start that it was Ben’s voice. Inside her head. 

Her head snapped towards him with a quizzical glance as they landed on the ground with a soft thud. Ben simply nodded, gesturing for her to step off the platform. Glancing around, Rey finally released Ben’s arm, and just as suddenly she heard his lightsaber ignite. With sure feet he stepped off the platform and Rey followed, unclipping her saber from her belt to ignite as she went. 

The air around them is thick and eerie and the hairs on the back of Rey’s neck stand at attention. Their footsteps echoed a pitter patter against the damp stone walls and their shadows were catching on the unmoving monuments of what were probably once great Sith Lords as they made their way toward the center of the temple. In the distance, the lightning and thunder continue their cacophony of sound just barely muted by the stone of the temple while their sabers buzz in their ears with every movement. 

This was a dangerous place. Not because it was eerie or cold or even old--it was dangerous because it was teeming with unchecked energy--dark energy--worse than the sorrow that emanated from the fallen Death Star. This energy feels old, primordial almost. 

A glance at Ben let her know that he was just as tense, but his presence physically next to her, his mind just within reach, eased her anxiety and she felt herself taking her first deep breath since landing on Exegol. 

It was short lived. 

They are surrounded by men armed with their weapon of choice and dressed in gaudy red. Without thinking, Rey stepped back and felt the warm weight of Ben’s back against her own as they assessed their targets. 

_ Wait, _ Ben called into her mind, stilling her hand. 

He did not want to make the first move and Rey was fighting herself to stand at attention, her mind flashing back to the Praetorian guard. It was only when these men lowered their weapons the slightest bit and attempted to herd them that they both moved as one, lashing out and fighting their way through them. 

Perhaps it was muscle memory from the Supremacy, the way they parry and blow, duck and strike, without getting in each other’s way. But Rey thought it had more to do with Ben’s mind being just there. She knew exactly when to duck so he didn’t slice her in two, he knew exactly when to step forward and lean back when she needed to step back for leverage, she knew when to clear her right arm so he could grab her blaster from her thigh holster, he knew exactly when to send the blaster back to Rey to take out a guard that just would not stay down--and Rey knew when to send it right back because she knew there were two axes in two hands and she saw them clear as day even though they are not in front of her, but in front of Ben. 

They were outnumbered, but it did not feel like it at all. Rey had fought side by side with other members of the Resistance, but it had never felt like this. It was almost exhilarating the way they moved so smoothly. She felt his Force signature sparkling and cracking with energy and when her arm faltered, she found herself calling on him and she found the strength to continue. Ben pulled from her energy as well and it was intoxicating the way her blood sang. 

And as soon as it had started, it was over. Rey turned to Ben to find him already looking at her, practically assessing. She could not blame him, because her eyes go directly to the scrape on his forehand, the burn in his left shoulder, and the way his cloak is sliced raggedly. But he looked flushed and alive and Rey smiled softly.

But Ben is solemn as he looked ahead and it reminded Rey where they are and what they’re doing. She turned to see that he was looking at nothing. Looking back at him, she patiently waited for some signal from Ben, but instead he walked forward, his right hand touching her bicep gently, his warmth startling her as he trailed down the length of her arm before letting go at her hand and walking ahead of her, his shoulders determined. Rey’s eyes followed his hand at his side as he moved his lightsaber back into his right to reignite before following a few steps behind. Her arm tingled and burned where he touched her and she hurried to follow after him, trying not to dwell too long on what that meant. 

They turned a corner and large metal containers and equipment became visible--strange humanoid beings floated in murky liquid and Rey fought the urge to be repulsed.  _ He was cloned, _ supplied Ben. 

Rey is unsure how to respond in his head, but she reached out and tried all the same.  _ You mean he cloned himself?  _

_ Yes, _ Ben answered quickly, and Rey smiled to herself at her success.  _ But his cloned hosts are unviable. They are unable to contain him and his dark energy. This host has been the most successful. _

_ Is that why he needs that big contraption? _ Rey asked skeptically, her eyes roaming over a massive mechanical arm with wires and chemicals flowing through glass pipes. She stopped dead in her tracks once she realized the drooping  _ thing _ at the end of the arm was the Emperor himself. 

“Rheaella Palpatine, at last,” crooned a scraping voice that reverberated in her mind and echoes in her eardrums. She tried to shut him out while pressing on her ears but his voice was still there. Frantically, she reached for Ben’s mind, and he’s there but he heard Palpatine just as loud as her and it was terrifying. Slowly, they make their way around the large mechanical arm the Emperor was suspended from, Rey glancing between Ben and his unperturbed gaze and the cloaked figure of the Emperor. 

“I have been waiting for my grandchild to come home,” this creature proclaimed beneath a dark hood. The words felt pulled from his throat and thrown at Rey like a weapon she did not know how to deflect. “Your father was wrong to hide you from me. I would have made you more powerful than you can imagine.” 

“Like I’d ever learn from you,” Rey spit, coming to stand before him and finding comfort in Ben at her side. 

“No?” he asked, his hood tilting just the slightest. “I made sure you were born in comfort on Convergence. You would have spent your life there like a Princess like I wanted but your father was a weak fool, he didn’t understand the power you had, the potential. And your mother was too sentimental, too attached to you.” Palpatine spat at her parent’s affection as if it was the scum of the earth. 

Rey said nothing. She wanted to know about this family, about her father, her mother, and where she was born. What was Convergence? But she stood still and said nothing, her fingers tightening around her saber as the urge to speak grew.

“You never wanted her dead,” Ben spoke, his deep voice echoing against the stone where the Emperor’s scorn rattled. Ben was looking at her, even when addressing Palpatine, he was looking at Rey, willing her to understand but Palpatine kept talking. 

“Of course not. I wanted you here, Empress Palpatine,” he informed slowly, gesturing to the stone throne that looked as if it was sprouting from the earth. Slowly, he hovered closer to them. “It is your birthright to rule, here. It is in your blood, our blood.” 

Palpatine turned his gaze toward Ben and she felt the shift in Ben’s mental shields immediately, the way they came up farther and harder and she shook as he pulled further away. “Skywalker,” Palpatine drawled. “The Skywalkers are weak Rheaella” 

“I haven’t come to lead the Sith,” Rey stated in the clearest voice she could muster. “I’ve come to end them.” 

“As a Jedi?”

“That doesn’t matter,” she retorted, her fingers adjusting anxiously on her saber.

_ He doesn’t want to kill you Rey _ , Ben finally spoke to her, his voice urgent and more unsettled than she has ever heard.  _ He wants a host.  _

“No, your hatred, you anger. You want to kill me. That is what I want,” he smiled down at them, feeling his success in their fear. “Kill me and my spirit will pass into you. As all the Sith live in me, you will be Empress. We will be one. With your hatred you will take my life, and you will ascend.” 

No.  _ No. _ Rey grasped frantically for Ben, seeking solace, seeking answers, seeking something. She refused to become this creature but she knew no other way to destroy him than to kill him, than to snuff the life from him so he can no longer haunt her or the galaxy. 

_ It’s okay, _ Ben whispered softly into the messy recesses of her mind.  _ We’ll find a way _ .

The Emperor growled at Rey’s silence. “Weak, like your parents.” 

“My parents were strong. They saved me from you,” Rey defended, protective of the only two poeple in her life who ever gave a damn about her. She felt unhinged in her fury, tired of her choices being taken from her. 

There was a gust of dry wind and Rey was Force pushing before she could even think, sending and pulling her energy along the tether between her and Ben to stay grounded where they stood. The air around them whipped in a whirlwind before it stopped suddenly. Looking around, Rey caught Ben’s eye before they both turned back to Palpatine who was looking at his hands in awe. The skin of his gnarled fingers were hissing and knitting back together. 

“A dyad in the force,” Palpatine gasped in reverence, his voice rose as he spoke. “The power of two restores the life of the one true Emperor,” was the last thing Rey heard before she was thrown to her knees and her body began to pull apart at the bones. She could not feel Ben, nor hear anything but the throbbing beat of her heart in her ears and the sharp crack of wind. She ached but she could not move to soothe it, her mind was bereft of Ben and she wanted to scream and wail but she could do nothing but stay still and wait until this onslaught ended. 

Just as suddenly as it began, it stopped. 

Nothing but the stone ground broke her fall. Her fingers shook as she gripped the gravel beneath her, struggling to move and breathe and think. Her eyes darted around her to take in her surroundings. She noted Ben was attempting to get up and she caught Palpatine move from the corner of her eye,  _ really  _ move, without the mechanical arm. Standing on shaking limbs, she heard Ben ignite his saber and Rey threw herself up and ignited her own as quickly as she could get her feet under herself. 

Before she could even lift her saber, Ben was hurled back with a gust of blue Force lightning. She shrieked, but was mentally urged by him to keep her guard up and it was the only reason she deflected the lightning headed her way on her saber. Ben was by her side again but in moments, they were both disarmed and shoved back. 

Rey coughed up the dust swirling in the air and settling in her lungs with every drawn deep breath as she sat up. Looking around for Ben,all she could glimpse was the bright orange of Palpatine’s eyes until she finally spotted a limp Ben suspended in the air, the subject of that orange glare. 

“As once I fell, so you fall, Skywalker,” snarled Palpatine before flinging Ben--Ben’s usually large figure looking so small and impossibly fragile--into the depths of the temple. 

She fell onto her back in despair wanting to shout her anguish but her throat was spasming shut as tears leaked from her eyes. It was here, on her back of the Sith temple with defeat on her tongue that Rey reached out and impossibly asked the Jedi to be with her. They have not been with her, not ever, but maybe now, maybe they might answer her desperation, and maybe was better than her bone deep feeling of loss. 

From her supine position, she realized the top of the temple was open and she spotted a thousand stars, constantly dashed away from view with every strike of unending lightning. Her eyes fluttered shut and she begged someone, anyone, be with her. 

_ These are your final steps Rey. Rise and take them.  _

Her eyes opened. 

_ Rey. Rey. Rey.  _

A cacophony of voices she has never heard sound in her head, familiar and strange all at once. 

_ Bring back the balance Rey, as I did.  _

The tears dry on her cheeks. 

_ The light, find the light Rey.  _

_ No, alone never have you been.  _

She sought Ben. She had the jedi, but she wanted Ben.  _ I’m okay, I’m coming. _ The breath came easier in her lungs and she almost laughed in relief. 

_ The force surrounds you Rey.  _

She rolled to her side. 

_ It guides you Rey. _

__

_ Feel the force flowing through you.  _

She willed her body, her muscles, to listen, to move. She got her knees steady under her, even as they pressed painfully into the uneven gravel. 

_ Let it lift you _

_ Rise Rey _

_ We stand behind you Rey  _

With a heaving breath, she stumbled to her feet. 

_ Rey. _

_ Rise in the force. _

_ In the heart of a jedi lies their strength. _

_ Rise. _

She called to her saber and it came flying into her waiting hand and ignited. 

_ Rise. _

_ Ben, _ she called to him in her head, needing to know he was still okay, that he was still coming.

_ I’m here. I’m coming.  _ He was so desperate and Rey’s heart was so full.

With renewed conviction, she was undeterred. She would end this. She took a step forward to face her grandfather as he watched her stand before him in defiance, once again. 

“Let your death be the final word in the story of rebellion,” he sneered. 

She was prepared for the strength of the lightning. Her saber went up and caught it even though her body felt as if it was standing by sheer will alone. 

“You are nothing. A scavenger girl is no match for the power in me,” he goaded as he hit her with more lightning. 

With a grunt, she took a step forward to gain ground. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Ben. But no, Ben could not be there. He could not be standing before her. How could he have gotten there without her noticing? 

_ Rey, _ he called to her.  _ My saber, take it. _ His hand was outstretched, holding out his saber, and she noticed that he looked to be running towards her, but she knew that he was not there. 

_ How? _ She asked, her teeth gritted as she struggled to maintain her ground. 

_ We are one. You already have it. _ And then he was gone and in her left hand was a heavy weight that was not there before. 

“I am all the Sith,” Palpatine exclaimed.

The red saber was ignited and crossed against the blue in a reigning light of brilliant purple. 

“And I am a dyad,” Rey grunted while taking another step toward an uncharacteristically shocked Palpatine. It was one hard step after another before Palpatine’s own lightning had him ensnared, paralyzing him so that he is unable to even stop killing himself. 

It was then that a warm hand found her left, and she knew Ben had found her, had come back to her. He gripped his saber and Rey let it go, shifting all her energy into her singular lightsaber. Together, they charged one last time before the Emperor dissolved for the last time in a blaze of glorious purple light that carried a blast past them, a blast that destroyed the throne and shook the ground they stood on. 

She was vaguely aware that the temple was falling apart around them, but she turned off her saber and crashed into Ben’s arms bonelessly. He caught her, but they find themselves sitting amongst the rubble. 

There was a heavy weariness in her bones that she cannot shake, but she pulled Ben closer and felt the thrum of his life’s energy beneath her palms. He was looking at her, the way he always does with such intensity. It was impossible to fathom that he was still here, that they have destroyed the last of the Sith yet they sit crumbled beneath the stars, clinging to each other.

Without thinking, Rey surged forward and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He was still for a moment, a moment long enough that Rey realized this was perhaps too much, but then his large arms were wrapped around her and she sighed into him, pushing her face into the crook of his neck as she felt the steady thump of his heart beat against her own. 

They broke away, aware that they were sitting on rocks in an unstable structure. Yet they pressed their foreheads together and shared a smile. It was Ben’s smile that caused Rey’s breath to catch. She didn’t think she had ever seen so much expression, so much joy, on his face. He had dimples and it was this little thought that had her reaching her fingers up to touch him, to make sure he was real. 

His smile faded slowly under the gentle press of her fingers but there was still an intense joy in his eyes that Rey wished to bottle up and keep forever. They stayed like that, breathing each other in until a large rock fell from above not too far from them. With wary looks, they slowly rose, knowing the structural integrity of the Temple will not hold forever. 

As they’re walking, Ben detoured to the tanks, the machines, the vials of Maker knows what before igniting his saber and slashing through it all. Rey wanted to ask why, but before the question left her, she realized this is where Palpatine cloned himself. His genetic material is here. Ben was destroying it so Palpatine could never rise again. 

His chest was heaving when he joined her again, but he said nothing as they made their way to the hexagonal sigil and waited for it to lift them back up to their ship, leaning on each other every once in a while when their body felt it may fail them. 

The atmosphere of Exegol was still violent, it still pressed uncomfortably into her skin, but Rey had not felt this light in years. Ensconced once again in the safety of the ship, Ben gave her the take off sequence as he sent a memo out to the First Order:  _ Leave Exegol airspace. Await further command from your Supreme Leader. _

When she had lifted off and the gray of the planet became smaller, Ben took control of the ship before they entered the asteroid field. After they broke atmosphere, Rey sighed in relief, glad to be leaving behind this part of the galaxy’s past for good.

“Where are we going?” she asked. 

Ben paused, as if he hadn’t truly considered it yet. “Anywhere we want,” he answered slowly, as if he himself could not believe it either. Their new reality was pulled into life as a benediction. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit to add: I took out the sith eternal nonsense. I couldn't figure out how these people got to the star destroyers when everyone else needed a wayfinder. also the cultists? where did they come from? so yeah, I scratched that. didn't make sense to me at all. So Ben telling the first order to clear airspace is basically saying do not land, back off, and it buys them time. 
> 
> kylo ren throwing away his light saber was dumb. Him not having anything to do with Palpatine's death was dumb. 
> 
> This fic came to life with two ideas: Rey gets to decide who she is. And Palpatine should die by Ben's hand too, in a wash of purple saber light. 
> 
> Rey not having a full name, was dumb also. I chose her name very specifically, can you guess why? 
> 
> I also took out the kiss because I'm saving that for Part 2.
> 
> Speaking of Part 2, If you can, subscribe to the series I made this a part of. Part 2 is coming out soon I hope. Along with a deleted scene at some point. 
> 
> Anyways, leave me your thoughts. This is the first fic I have ever finished (even if this is only part 1) and I'm quite proud of it.


End file.
